Apparel Online Bangladesh Magazine August Issue 2018 | Page 10

MINDTREE THE LATEST NEWS For the latest news on apparel and textile, make sure that you visit https://apparelresources.com/top-news/ Q-and-A Workers’ turnaround after Eid is a big concern for many garment manufacturers… Have you encountered any such issue pertaining to workers’ failing to turn up for work after this Eid ul-Fitr, which may have impacted your business? Khokon Chandra Kundu Director – Marketing, AKR Group Md. Fazlul Hoque, Managing Director, Plummy Fashions Limited (PFL) As one would know, being an Islamic country, we generally celebrate two Eid-Ul-Fitr and Eid-Ul-Azha. In fact both the Eids account for long holidays of 7-12 days usually. After the holidays, most of the workers come back and join work on time. However, in certain cases, some workers are delayed by 2-3 days and some even by 7-8 days; in the latter case, the number of workers does not exceed 2- 3 per cent.   Every Eid, the workers’ turnaround is a perennial problem, which started since the inception of the industry. Almost every factory suffers an average 10-15 per cent loss of workers after Eid and this is a big challenge for the manufacturers. In majority cases, around 97- 98 per cent, workers return at duty places after Eid-Ul-Fitr as the next Eid is in a span of another one month and continuing work for another month ensures them another bonus plus a month’s salary.  However, things turn little different in case of Eid-Ul-Azha. Every year, after Eid-Ul-Azha, most of the RMG factories witness around 10-15 per cent workers’ migration, and this is something we have been witnessing for long. In such cases, factories have no option but to recruit some new workers/staff to strengthen the production team. Due to this, factories have to face a slowdown of the production process for 1-15 days, which becomes little difficult to cover-up the shipment time. And this is something which has become a yearly affair. However, we at the AKR  Group, do not have to face this problem as we pay 100 per cent bonus which  is an equivalent to  full  salary (consolidated), effectively meaning that all the members of AKR Group are getting 14 months’ salary against 12 months in a year. Due to this, we are getting some extra advantage and face little challenges or crisis situation due to workers’ absenteeism. Abdul Auwal Khaled Sr. Merchandiser, Valiant Group Workers’ turnaround after Eid is definitely an issue for the industry. Eid-Ul-Fitr has just been over and it will take around 1-2 weeks more for the situation to get normal. And again after one month, we are bracing for Eid-Ul-Azha. 10 Apparel Online Bangladesh | August 2018 | www.apparelresources.com However, it has to be also noted that in majority of the cases, workers move from one factory to another. So if you look from the industry’s perspective, there’s no loss so as to say. Nonetheless, for individual manufacturing units, it does have business implications as losing workers who have been trained and know the working procedures well is a setback. But as I said, being a perennial problem, manufacturers can well anticipate the loss of workers after Eid and work around things to a certain degree to ensure there’s no huge impact on production and orders but yes there is setback for sure. POST YOUR COMMENTS www.apparelresources.com [email protected] NEXT MINDTREE QUESTION As per reports, Accord and Alliance would leave Bangladesh by the end of 2018. Are you happy with this development? Do you think the exit of these buyers’ bodies would lead to business and operational ease or will it have adverse business implications upon the industry considering that both have been formed by global buyers? Please share your views…